​Almost 100 GROGs attended the monthly lunch to welcome Fergus Neil, breaking his duck as Chairman, and David Barnes, well known rugby correspondent, author and blogger, who broke the GROGS Speakers “height record”, towering over Al Kellock by almost 1 inch! Dipping into his considerable knowledge of the refereeing fraternity Fergus told some good stories about them, especially the more than famous Nigel Owens. The biggest compliment that can be paid to David Barnes in describing his passionate and insightful address is that he spoke completely in his own right as David Barnes and not as the son of Ian Barnes, the former Scottish international lock forward. A successful rugby player himself, having played for Hawick and Edinburgh Accies before being forced to retire through injury, David showcased his qualifications as a rugby correspondent for several broadsheet newspapers (and 1 or 2 not-so-broadsheet others)! He restricted his comments to a short description of his transition to rugby columnist and a much longer description of his concerns about what might be happening to club rugby with the desire of rugby “officialdom” to extend their power and authority over the sport. He was clearly unhappy about the present day governance of the game in Scotland and is further worried that some English clubs have too much control in European rugby whilst working with a lack of obvious viability. The setting up of the proposed ‘Super Six’ he sees as being fraught with problems and part of a creeping dimunition of the independence of the leading clubs on both the players and officials fronts. A frustration about the lack of the type of rugby coverage he believes the ordinary rugby enthusiast in Scotland looks for led David to establishing the website www.theoffsideline.com which has gained in popularity and stature since it was set up 18 months ago. His aim of wanting to report and comment in the way the 2 main ‘rugby papers’ should have been doing is clearly being achieved and discerning GROGs would do well to check out the site. In appreciation of his contribution, Fergus Neil presented David with a bottle of, what he assured him is, a very rare whisky indeed.